


Almost

by fromthedeskoftheraven



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Bard's wife survives, Childbirth, Difficult Labor, F/M, Family Feels, Fix-It, Fluff, Newborn Children
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-22
Updated: 2016-08-22
Packaged: 2018-08-10 10:44:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7841680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fromthedeskoftheraven/pseuds/fromthedeskoftheraven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If Bard's wife had survived Tilda's birth...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Almost

The only thing of which she was certain anymore was the pain. 

Pain made the hours blur into each other, made her begin to feel that she’d never known anything else, and yet, just as its merciless grip tightened unbearably, sure to crush her straining body to pieces, it vanished. The echoes of her cries still hung in the air as another, smaller, more insistent cry filled the bedroom.

Her body seemed to float with the blessed lightness of relief…but she was too light, too free. It was carrying her away, and the midwife wore a halo of encroaching darkness as she leaned over her, firmly patting her cheeks, calling her name. 

Bard’s face suddenly appeared, with fear written plainly on his handsome features. His eyes were pleading, but the words his lips formed were drowned out by the thick buzzing in her ears.

There was something she must ask him – something important – but it hovered just out of her memory’s reach, and even as she strove to grasp it, blackness descended on her like a shroud.

* * *

Lingering dizziness made her head swim when she dragged her eyes open, blinking as the slat wood ceiling of the bedroom came into focus. Her gaze wandered in dazed uncertainty to the bed beneath her, now clothed in clean linens, and to the fresh nightdress she wore. 

“Bard,” she whispered weakly. “Bard…”

His face was pale, drawn, and he gently took her hand in his, pressing it to his lips in gratitude. “I’m here, darling,” he promised. “I haven’t left you.”

“The baby,” she remembered at last, her voice growing stronger with the fear that seized her. 

“Fine and healthy,” he soothed, his mouth twisting with emotion as he tried to smile reassuringly. “A beautiful little girl. She looks just like Sigrid did.”

“Thank the Valar,” she sighed, relaxing back into the pillow. “What happened?”

**“I almost lost you,”** he said, blinking back fresh tears. “You bled too much, and we thought–” Bard’s voice broke, and he dropped his head to rest his forehead on their clasped hands. His shoulders shook as he gave himself over to silent sobs that made tears well in her own eyes, blurring her vision while she reached with her free hand to stroke his dark hair.

“ **I’m sorry,** love,” she murmured. “I’m so sorry to have frightened you.”

He shook his head as he looked up again, drawing his shirt sleeve across his eyes and giving a resounding sniff. “It’s all right, now,” he smiled bravely. “You’re still here with us.”

The midwife came bustling into the room with a relieved smile at the sight of her patient awake and alert. “Drink this, dear,” she instructed, holding a steaming mug to the new mother’s lips as Bard carefully propped her shoulders on stacked pillows. “Bone broth, for your strength.”

The broth was savory and comforting, and Bard helped her to drink two cups, as well as dipping bits of bread into the soup for her to eat. She subsided onto the pillows with a refreshed smile, weak though she was, and just as he pressed a grateful kiss to her forehead, there came a tiny, mewling whimper from the common room that tugged at her heart.

“Oh, Bard, bring her to me,” she begged. “Please. I want her.”

“Of course,” he said, patting her hand as he rose to his feet. 

He soon returned, murmuring affectionately to what looked like a little bundle of blankets cradled in his arms, and as he came to sit beside her on the bed, she had her first glimpse of their daughter’s face. The baby’s wide blue eyes stared up at Bard as if in fascination as he gently traced her chubby cheek with his fingertip before placing her in his wife’s weary arms. 

“Tilda,” she breathed, awestruck, inhaling the scent of the baby’s downy head as she kissed her cheeks.

“Tilda?” Bard frowned curiously.

She smiled sheepishly. “It’s just a fancy I had, to call her Tilda if she was a girl.”

“I think it suits her,” he smiled, reaching to take the baby’s hand between his fingers, chuckling when her own, tiny fingers curled to grasp his.

Little Tilda began to squirm and root in that familiar way, and Bard helped his wife slip her nightdress from her shoulder to guide the little one to her mother’s breast, where she settled into contented suckling, coaxing amused smiles from both of her parents with her little squeaks and sighs.

She fell silent, watching the baby, and at last looked pensively at Bard. “Would you have been tempted to hate her, if I had died giving her life?”

A pained look crossed his face, but for her sake he kept his tone light, even playful. **“How can I hate someone that I’m in love with?”** He smiled reassuringly, reaching to stroke Tilda’s wrinkled foot that protruded from the knitted blanket. “This little one has had my heart from the moment I laid eyes on her, just like her sister and brother.”

She nodded, throwing off her melancholy thoughts, and he draped his arm around her shoulders and drew her close, pressing kisses into her hair before resting his temple against hers to look at Tilda, who had given up nursing and fallen serenely asleep.

There was a mild commotion outside the bedroom, and their next-door neighbor appeared in the doorway, shepherding two unusually timid children.

“Blessings on you all,” Hilda said kindly, smiling at the couple. “They’ve just sent over the news, you see, and the little ones were so eager to come home and see the baby.”

They exchanged beaming smiles, and Bard called cheerfully, “Sigrid, Bain…come and meet your sister.”

“Sister?” Sigrid squealed, clasping her hands together with joy, while Bain repeated, more resignedly, “sister?”

They piled onto the bed, with Bard reminding them to be careful not to jostle their mother too much, and Sigrid fell to admiring Tilda, from her rosebud mouth to her wee toes. Bain begrudgingly admitted that she was perhaps not so dull as some babies, earning knowing smiles from his parents.

She looked around her at her family with a full heart, watching and listening to the children she had borne and the man who would always be the love of her life, and new tears, this time of happiness, spilled to her cheeks.

Sigrid hopped up on her knees before her mother, resting her small hands on her damp face. 

“You’re crying, Mama,” she frowned. “What’s wrong? Don’t you like Baby Tilda?”

She laughed, fondly smoothing the little girl’s golden hair. “Nothing is wrong, my darling. I love Baby Tilda, as I love you all.” Her eyes met Bard’s adoring gaze over the heads of their children. “It’s a wonderful day.”


End file.
